Empower LA – Neighborhood Council Online Election Voter Registration

Empower LA – VRP:

Welcome to the 2016 Neighborhood Council Online Election Voter Registration Portal

EmpowerLA is excited to announce that in addition to having polling locations on election day, 35 of the 96 Neighborhood Councils in the City of Los Angeles are also piloting Online Voting for their elections, which provides an opportunity for voters to register in advance of the election day and vote from a desktop computer, a tablet, or a smart phone.  In addition, 12 of the 35 are offering Interactive Voice Response (touch-tone phone) voting for their stakeholders.

Neighborhood Council elections are open to voters who are qualified stakeholders within the boundaries of the Neighborhood Council.  A stakeholder is defined as anyone who lives, works or owns real property in the neighborhood and also to those who declare a stake in the neighborhood as a community interest stakeholder, defined as a person who affirms a substantial and ongoing participation within the Neighborhood Council’s boundaries and who may be in a community organization such as, but not limited to, educational, non-profit and/or religious organization.  In other words, a voter can qualify if they are a resident, worker, real property owner or if they have a significant and active involvement in your community in another way that’s connected to a qualifying address.

You can register now to vote online for your Neighborhood Council elections.  To register, you will need to provide your qualifying address within the Neighborhood Council boundaries.  If you don’t know your Neighborhood Council, please provide your qualifying address in the box below, and you will be directed to your Neighborhood Council’s Online Voter Registration page if they are offering Online Voting.

Thank you for participating in the Neighborhood Council elections!

Choose Your Neighborhood Council

* Interactive voice response also offered

Select OneCanoga ParkCentral Alameda*Del ReyDowntown LAEmpowerment Congress North*Empowerment Congress Southeast*Empowerment Congress SouthwestEmpowerment Congress WestEncinoGlassell ParkGreater Valley GlenHarbor Gateway NorthHistoric CulturalHistoric Highland ParkLA 32*Lake BalboaLincoln Heights*Mid City*Mid City West*North Hills WestNorth Hollywood NortheastNorthridge EastNorthridge WestOlympic Park*PalmsPanorama CityPorter RanchReseda*Silver LakeSouth RobertsonStudio City*Sylmar*West HillsWilmingtonZapata-King*

Please enter a your qualifying address below

i.e 200 N. Spring street

Choose Your Neighborhood Council

* Interactive voice response also offered

Canoga Park | Central Alameda* | Del Rey | Downtown LA | Empowerment Congress North*| Empowerment Congress Southeast* | Empowerment Congress Southwest | Empowerment Congress West | Encino | Glassell Park | Greater Valley Glen | Harbor Gateway North| Historic Cultural | Historic Highland Park | LA 32* | Lake Balboa | Lincoln Heights* | Mid City* | Mid City West* | North Hills West | North Hollywood Northeast | Northridge East| Northridge West | Olympic Park* | Palms | Panorama City | Porter Ranch | Reseda* | Silver Lake | South Robertson | Studio City* | Sylmar* | West Hills | Wilmington | Zapata-King* |

 Empower LA – VRP:

Connecticut ALERT: Malloy/Wyman Administration to punish schools and taxpayers for protecting parental rights - Wait What?

Connecticut ALERT: Malloy/Wyman Administration to punish schools and taxpayers for protecting parental rights - Wait What?:

Connecticut ALERT: Malloy/Wyman Administration to punish schools and taxpayers for protecting parental rights

Last spring, in response to the State of Connecticut’s attempt to force students to take the unfair, inappropriate and discriminatory Common Core Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test, a scheme designed to fail the majority of children by testing them on content that they have not been taught, a significant number of Connecticut parents informed their local school districts that their children would not be participating in the SBAC testing scam.

While many local school administrators joined the Malloy/Wyman Administration’s effort to lie and mislead parents about their fundamental and inalienable right to refuse to participate in the testing program, some school districts did stand up on behalf of their parents and students.

Madison, E.O. Smith (Mansfield, Willington and Ashford -Region #19) and Stonington were among the high schools that told parents the truth and respected parental instructions.  In each case, approximately 85 percent of high school juniors ended up opting out of the 11^thgrade Common Core SBAC test.

But now Connecticut’s State Department of Education is striking back.

With the federal government yelping about the “high” number of parents across the nation Connecticut ALERT: Malloy/Wyman Administration to punish schools and taxpayers for protecting parental rights - Wait What?:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Are We Becoming What We Have Been Taught to Fear?

With A Brooklyn Accent: Are We Becoming What We Have Been Taught to Fear?:

Are We Becoming What We Have Been Taught to Fear?

Within the last year, two novels set in Nazi Occupied France- "All the Light We Cannot See" and "The Nightingale"- have become national best sellers. Now, a symbol of teacher resistance in Nazi-Occupied Norway-the Paper Clip- is being adopted by teachers in the US who feel under attack.
Is this accidental? I hardly think so. Many working class and middle class Americans who have watched their living standards plummet and their jobs be destroyed feel like THEY are under a kind of occupation by soulless and greedy elites. While it may be extreme to call it "Fascism," there are elements of that system visible in the convergence of government and corporate power, the militarization of police, the destruction of unions, rapid gentrification in cities, the erosion of civil liberties and attacks on vulnerable groups by people seeking public office. When you add to this the acquittal of those responsible for the deaths of Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Trayvon Martin, you have a sense that government and corporate power in the US represent a Colossus that rules over the lives of ordinary citizens, one which they are powerless to With A Brooklyn Accent: Are We Becoming What We Have Been Taught to Fear?:

A Tale of 2 States: Lessons to Be Learned (Frederick Hess and Sarah DuPre) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

A Tale of 2 States: Lessons to Be Learned (Frederick Hess and Sarah DuPre) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

A Tale of 2 States: Lessons to Be Learned (Frederick Hess and Sarah DuPre)

Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Sarah DuPre is a Research Assistant in Education Policy at American Enterprise Institute

U.S. News and World Report, “Knowledge Bank” ,  Dec. 14, 2015

Whether you agree or disagree with their characterizations of Washington, D.C. and Hawaii as “success” stories–the sole metric used is the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress–is less important than the lessons they extract from these two “success” stories. These lessons are anchored in the power of context shaping reform, a lesson that historians have found again and again in their inquiries into past school reforms.

The new Every Student Succeeds Act wisely returns to the states much of the authority for directing school improvement that the federal government had assumed in the past 15 years. Some states are ready to roll, but plenty are searching for potential role models. Fortunately, at least two such candidates are easy to find.

Earlier this fall, the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” provided a snapshot of student achievement across the land. Amidst generally disappointing results, there were a few bright spots. Washington, D.C., and Hawaii, led the nation in aggregate national assessment improvement over the past decade. From dismal depths in 2005, the two have climbed their way to respectability. In a new report for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, entitled, “Laggards to Leaders in K-12,” we take a deeper look at what has transpired in these locales that can help account for their outsized gains.

The District’s bold approach to reform is the more familiar story. In 2007, the city council voted to give control of the schools to the new mayor, Adrian Fenty. Fenty appointed the dynamic Michelle Rhee as chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools. Under Fenty and Rhee, the District negotiated a radical new contract with the Washington Teachers Union that allowed teachers to earn more than $100,000 a year with just nine years of experience – in return for an end to traditional tenure protections. D.C. Public Schools also streamlined the central administration, adopted a pioneering new teacher evaluation system, revamped a broken special education system and shuttered excess schools. This preliminary work set the stage for a phase two, led by Rhee’s one-time deputy and eventual successor Kaya Henderson, which focused on engaging families and recruiting, retaining and developing talented teachers and school leaders.

Even as these dramatic changes were occurring within D.C. Public Schools, the D.C. charter sector was flourishing. Today, it enrolls about 45 percent of District students. Charters thrived with an ecosystem of organizations that helped to attract and support effective schools. Those efforts were coupled by a statutory shift that gave the D.C. Public Charter School Board oversight of all local charter schools, and allowed them to help poor-performing charters either improve or close.

Hawaii’s story is strikingly different. It is not an account of controversial leaders or bold policies but of culture and collaboration. As a small island state with only 180,000 students and a single school district, Hawaii makes it possible for state leaders to have a direct connection to the schools – and direct control over what happens – in ways that are not feasible in larger states. That personal touch was augmented by leadership stability; Hawaii has had just two state superintendents in the past 14 years.

The District’s bold strategies would have limited applicability in Hawaii because the state couldn’t overhaul its teaching force even if it wanted to. As one A Tale of 2 States: Lessons to Be Learned (Frederick Hess and Sarah DuPre) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Why Philanthropy Hurts Rather Than Helps Some of the World's Worst Problems | The Progressive

Why Philanthropy Hurts Rather Than Helps Some of the World's Worst Problems | The Progressive:

Why Philanthropy Hurts Rather Than Helps Some of the World's Worst Problems

In America today, big time philanthropists are often lauded for helping to even the playing field for those less fortunate. Every week, millionaires flock from TED conferences to "idea festivals" sharing viral new presentations on how to solve the world's biggest problems (give village children computers, think positive thoughts etc.). But this acceptance of the philanthropic order was not always the case. In the era of Carnegie and Rockefeller, for instance, many distrusted these philanthropic barons, arguing they had no right to horde would-be tax dollars for their own pet causes, especially since these "donations" came from the toil of the workers beneath them.

In her new book No Such Thing As A Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy Linsey McGoey reasserts this challenge to the legitimacy of philanthropy in today's new  era of philanthropic superstars. McGoey’s book investigates the Gates Foundation’s interventions in US K-12 education and global health, raising serious concerns about the extent to which the massive philanthropic sector depletes funding for traditional social services and prioritizes the agendas of unelected foundation leaders.

As institutions like the Gates Foundation take increasingly leading roles in policymaking and governance, McGoey argues, the line between traditional notions of charity and top-down consolidation of power becomes unclear; and with this largely unchecked influence, philanthro-capitalists, like Bill Gates, have pushed countries across the world to accept market based solutions for crises like education inequity and disease proliferation—despite evidence that these problems are often rooted in actions taken by those philanthro-capitalists themselves.

No Such Thing As A Free Gift asks, what is the place of such philanthropy in a democratic society? The answer seems to be “none at all.”

You start the book by putting the rise of today's "philanthrocapitalists," like Bill Gates, into historical context. Could you explain what philanthrocapitalism is and what is actually new about it? How do the Bill Gateses of today compare to the Carnegies and Rockefellers of old?

The term philanthrocapitalism was coined by Matthew Bishop, an editor at the Economist and expanded in a 2008 book co-written with Michael Green. They define the term in two key ways: First, they argue that philanthropy is becoming more business-like Why Philanthropy Hurts Rather Than Helps Some of the World's Worst Problems | The Progressive:

Exploring Cross-State Variations in Resources, Outcomes and Gaps | School Finance 101

Exploring Cross-State Variations in Resources, Outcomes and Gaps | School Finance 101:

Exploring Cross-State Variations in Resources, Outcomes and Gaps

For the past several years now, the Education Law Center of New Jersey and I have been producing a roughly annual report on the state of school finance systems. As that report has evolved, we have taken advantage of publicly available data to construct more and more indicators. Over the next several months, we will be releasing an update of the funding fairness report and a report in collaboration with Educational Testing Services which will explore in greater depth the relationships among the various indicators across states. I also expect in the near future to be releasing, with support of Shanker Institute, an update of my 2012 report exploring what we know about the relationship between school spending, schooling resources and student outcomes – in other words, the “does money matter” question.

In my last post, I explored national average trends in school spending and schooling resources, and discussed some of the recent literature on the topic. Here, I provide some snapshots of cross-state variations in financial effort, financial inputs, real resource inputs and student outcomes across states.

I begin with a relatively simple model of how effort and funding translates to resources, and how those resources ultimately provide the enabling conditions for the classroom conditions and practices that lead to better student outcomes. Despite the assertions of some, the schooling equation remains relatively simple – Schooling remains a human resource intensive endeavor, requiring competitive wages to recruit quality teachers and other school staff, and requiring sufficient capital outlay as well to provide the setting for schooling. The search for the holy grail of alternative technologies (broadly speaking, any substantive changes to educational organization/practices) that would substantially reduce the costs of achieving the same outcomes, has not, as of yet panned out. I have discussed this issue generally (as well as methods for studying it), and with specific reference to teacher compensation, as well as “chartering” [where the most aggressive technological substitutions in particular have been massive failures thus far].

REALLY SIMPLE MODEL

Building on the findings and justifications provided by Baker (2012 – Update coming soon!!!), we offer Figure 1 as a simple model of the relationship of schooling resources to children’s measurable school achievement outcomes. First, the fiscal capacity of states – their wealth and income – does affect their ability to finance public education systems. But, as we have shown in related research, on which we expand herein, the effort put forth in state and local tax policy plays an equal role (Baker, Farrie & Sciarra, 2010).

The amount of state and local revenue raised drives the majority of current spending of local public school districts, because federal aid constitutes such a relatively small share. Further, the amount of money a district is able spend on current operations determines the staffing ratios, class sizes and wages a local public school district is able to pay. Indeed, there are tradeoffs to be made between staffing ratios and wage levels. Finally, a sizable body of research illustrates the connection between staffing qualities and quantities and student outcomes (see Baker, 2012).

Figure 1

The connections laid out in this model seem rather obvious. How much you raise dictates how much you can spend. How much you spend in a labor intensive industry dictates how many individuals you can Exploring Cross-State Variations in Resources, Outcomes and Gaps | School Finance 101:

Teaching for Justice & Rebellion | @ THE CHALKFACE

Teaching for Justice & Rebellion | @ THE CHALKFACE:

Teaching for Justice & Rebellion

Let me just say that I agree with most of my more progressive colleagues out there in their calls for teaching with a bend towards social justice, activism, and rebellion.

Take this for example: From the Progressive on “Teaching Rebellion.”

To wit:

Why waste precious class time doing a close read of a technical manual from a Pearson reader when we can read local newspapers and community blogs? Why should students learn docile obedience in class when the times call for us to civilly disobey and march in the streets? What does “College and Career Ready” matter when the bodies of students of color are being obliterated?

That’s fine exposition. But Mr. Barrett, to whom are you speaking?

Inspirational calls for justice and activism in the classroom all exist within a particular context. Very few educators in the avant garde of education activism would disagree with passionate pleas for justice. And I certainly would like to see more examples of actual teaching for justice being implemented. Concrete examples would all help us to better achieve our goals.

In Washington, DC, where similar degrees of oppression from leadership exist, I think it would be fair to say that we lack the same degree of passion when compared to activist groups in, say, Chicago. Teachers in DC definitely don’t possess the same amount of solidarity and cover that is provided to members of the Chicago Teachers’ Union (Try being a building’s union rep and you’ll see real quick).

But let me ask again: Mr. Barrett, to whom are you speaking? I work with a lot of teachers who would love to actualize Mr. Barrett’s calls to justice. I could certainly recommend this article, and a host of others, to our teachers. Yet, I think Mr. Barrett and others should direct some of their ire and calls to action to administrators, who largely control the what and how of teaching in the classroom.

By the powers invested in teacher evaluation, and through a pervasive culture of fear that envelops us all, Teaching for Justice & Rebellion | @ THE CHALKFACE:

Looking back over 2015. | Fred Klonsky

Looking back over 2015. | Fred Klonsky:

Looking back over 2015.



 Some posts from the past year:

Before the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in our favor, I started 2015 out by saying if we want to win our pensions we must also fight for peace and justice.

The IEA might lose 600 adjunct members from Columbia College. And they did.

I was an early supporter of the Progressive Caucus in the Chicago City Council. And I still am.

With Bruce Rauner pushing Right to Work, my friend Lee Tally explained why unions were important.

2015 would be the last year I would be a delegate to an IEA or NEA Representative Assembly. The IEA was helpful for bargaining a contract, but they are not standing up for retirees.

I shaved my beard and kept my moustache for Chuy. That raised $500 for the Chuy campaign, half coming from CTU President Karen Lewis.

There was a lot going on out in Hinsdale with the crazy Tea Party members of the board of education.

With school corruption occurring at the highest levels, in Atlanta it was African Looking back over 2015. | Fred Klonsky:

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Do the Feds Heart Testing?

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Do the Feds Heart Testing?:

Why Do the Feds Heart Testing?

It has been a fact of educational life for so long, that we don't take the question out and ask it much any more, but really--

Why is there a federal requirement to give students a standardized test?

Why has that provision, that requirement, that burden been given the weight of federal regulation? Even as ESSA tore down and ripped up many pieces of federal oversight and regulation, that provision was never in doubt. At best, for a while, there was hope that the testing requirement would be reduced, but nobody ever thought that the federal requirement to make give students a standardized test would go away. And it didn't.

But why? Why does the federal government believe that an important national interest is served by testing every American school student, year after year?

There's no federal requirement that every automobile be inspected year after year. There's no federal requirement to even register firearms, let alone make sure they're still working properly. Federal requirements for food are loose and getting looser, with the FDA limited in how much inspecting they can get done and what they can do about the results. There's no annual federal testing requirement for soldiers and armaments, no federal requirement for annual testing of road surfaces, no federal requirement for annual testing of judges or legislators-- you get the idea. There's a big long list of things that are important for the welfare and safety of the country, a long list of things that taxpayers spend big money on, and yet do not operate under a federal demand for constant testing.

On top of that, once the federally required tests have been given-- what will the feds do with the 


FL: Stamping Out Science?

Florida remains an important reminder that as much as I love the idea of local control, it can a powerful instrument for educational malpractice.

Yes, the state has managed to fumble everything from their Big Standardized Test crash-and-burn to making Florida a petri dish for growing some of the most odious reformster groups around (and all of that educational baloney just to help launch Jeb! into the biggest national campaign fizzle since New Coke). They let Bill Gates play with (and crash) a whole school district. But Florida has also allowed local school boards the freedom to make baldly racist assaults on their own school system.Pinellas County schools resegregated their elementary schools and cut off proper funding and support to the poor black ones.

Now some right-wing Common Core opponents are backing proposed laws that would give local taxpayers a tactical nuke to use on their school districts.

House Bill 899 and Senate Bill 1018 are aimed at the book-buying procedure in Florida. Florida Citizens' Alliance is one of the groups backing this measure; on their web page you can find a call to action for both these actions (billed as anti-Common Core legislation) and open carry and campus carry bills.

They would like to see a change in how textbooks are selected. The bill calls for a committee chosen by the local school board, containing at least one third parents, following public meeting FL: Stamping Out Science?

6 Reasons Your Kid Could Have Less Standardized Testing in 2016 - Yahoo News

6 Reasons Your Kid Could Have Less Standardized Testing in 2016 - Yahoo News:

6 Reasons Your Kid Could Have Less Standardized Testing in 2016

It’s been a rough year for standardized testing—the timed, fill-in-the-bubble-with-a-No. 2-pencil mental gauntlets feared by students, loathed by teachers, and loved by education policy makers, perhaps because they no longer have to take them. Testing started in earnest decades ago as a measure of academic skills and intensified in 2002 as education policy specialists suggested it could help students in the United States catch up with their global peers and measure how well public schoolteachers are doing their jobs.

But over the course of 2015, there were major disturbances in the testing universe. Students, with their parents’ blessing, chose not to take them; a growing number of colleges questioned their usefulness; and arguably the biggest official proponent of testing decided to leave his post. Here are the top six moments of 2015 that will influence what happens in classrooms next year.

6. Computer Problems With Standardized Test Scoring

The partial list reads like a random roll call of the states: Illinois, Virginia, Montana, North Dakota. Yet, that’s only a handful of the dozen or so states where computer glitches either ruined or didn’t deliver results of high-stakes assessment tests, according to information compiled by the Center for Fair and Open Testing, also known as FairTest. States pushed back, withholding payments to testing firms—in Nevada, where only 30 percent of students completed the test, authorities reached a $1.3 million settlement. In Indiana, testing giant CTB McGraw Hill did nothing to correcta problem that fouled up thousands of scores on the Hoosier State’s assessment test.

5. ACT, SAT, OUT: More Colleges Dropping Tests as Admission Requirement

As K–12 standardized assessments fell by the wayside, 2015 saw an increasing number of colleges and universities either scaling back use of the ACT and SAT tests—or ditching them altogether—as an admission requirement. The factors leading them in that direction are familiar to any college-bound teenager anxiously awaiting the oversize, computerized envelope containing their scores, and, essentially, their future: heightened student stress before, during, and after the test; the temptation to cheat; and the test's inability to objectively determine if a top scorer is a knowledgeable student or just a great test taker.

4. Atlanta Cheating Scandal Concludes

In a cautionary tale for the nation, 11 Atlanta educators were convicted in April of altering, inflating, or fabricating test scores on student achievement tests in struggling schools, bringing to a close the most massive cheating scandal in the nation’s history. Authorities said the scandal dated back to 2001, when scores on statewide aptitude tests shot up unexpectedly; more than 30 educators were indicted in 2013, and most took plea deals. The educators—ranging from classroom teachers to school administrators in on the conspiracy—were sentenced to a mix of prison time, home detention, probation, and fines.

3. Explosion of the Opt-Out Anti-Test Movement

In arguably the biggest blow to the bureaucratic education reform movement, an estimated 500,000 students in seven states, from New York to Oregon, chose not to take federally mandated assessment tests in the spring, with the blessing of their parents, according to FairTest. (The U.S. Department of Education won’t have official opt-out numbers until later this month.) Testing advocates say the tests hold teachers accountable and measure student 6 Reasons Your Kid Could Have Less Standardized Testing in 2016 - Yahoo News:

Too few students taking state exams; Washington could face sanctions | The Seattle Times

Too few students taking state exams; Washington could face sanctions | The Seattle Times:

Too few students taking state exams; Washington could face sanctions

A dozen states were asked to address test-participation rates that dipped lower than the required 95 percent.

Washington is one of 12 states that could face sanctions if it fails to get more students to take state exams next spring.

The U.S. Department of Education has sent warning letters to Washington and the 11 other states where participation rates on state reading and math tests fell below the required 95 percent.

Washington’s participation rate was about 91 percent, according to the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, with many high-school juniors refusing to take the exams.

If states do little or nothing to raise participation rates, the federal agency  could place them on high-risk status, issue a cease-and-desist order and/or withhold a portion of the state’s federal education funding, according to the letter, which Education Week posted last week.

In a response sent Dec. 2, Washington state’s education office wrote that schools and districts here with lower-than-required participation will have to come up with a plan to increase their rates next spring. The office will provide additional information for schools and school districts to share with their communities about what the federal government requires and how test results are used.

“The plan must address the causes of the low participation rate and the actions the district and/or schools will take in response to the low participation rate,” Assistant Superintendent Gayle Pauley wrote.

Washington schools had no problem meeting the required participation rate in grades three through eight. Participation rates were also high for high-school sophomores, who have to pass the state’s English language-arts test to graduate.

The numbers were much lower for juniors, who weren’t required to take the tests for graduation. About 30 percent of juniors across the state were confirmed refusals for both the English/language arts and math tests, according to state test data.

One of the districts with a high refusal rate was Seattle Public Schools, where 43 percent of juniors opted out of the English-language arts test, and 44 percent opted out of the math test. Other nearby districts had even higher rates: Preliminary data showed more than three-quarters of juniors in the Bainbridge Island, Issaquah, Enumclaw and Snoqualmie Valley school districts refused to take the tests.

The other states that received warning letters are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, according to Education Week.

Even though the federal government recently passed a new education law, Too few students taking state exams; Washington could face sanctions | The Seattle Times: